Trump is increasingly delusional and out of touch with reality; If media will report the truth, a generational shift away from the Republican Party could occur
Tom Nichols in an eye-opening article The Atlantic1 reports on Donald Trump’s press conference on May 8 at Mar-a-Lago, and sharply criticizes the New York Times and the Washington Post for failing to report the reality of what actually happened at the press conference.2
Nichols writes that a more accurate account of the news conference might read as follows:
The former president, lying about abortion laws, said women murder their own babies in the delivery room. He megalomaniacally claimed that he gets bigger crowds than anyone in history, and compared himself to Martin Luther King Jr. He descended into fantasy by telling a story about surviving a helicopter emergency that never happened with a man who wasn’t there.
Should the reality of Donald Trump’s current state of mind and mental health ever penetrate the bubble of Republican propaganda, it is possible that the Republicans could suffer a defeat at the polls in November of historic proportions.
FURTHER READING
1)See Jennufer Rubin, “Trump’s decline: His interviews and lies get worse; as the 2024 race draws tighter, the former president’s actions suggest he is spiraling.” Washington Post, August 16, 2024 (9:00 am EDT).
2)
Tom Nichols, “The Truth About Trump’s Press Conference; His obvious emotional instability is frightening, not funny, The Atlantic, August 9, 2024 (4:15 pm ET).
See,
1)Maggie Haberman, Shane Goldmacher, and Jonathan Swan,”Trump Tries to Wrestle Back Attention at Mar-a-Lago News Conference; In an hourlong exchange with reporters, the former president criticized Vice President Kamala Harris for not doing the same, insulted her intelligence and boasted about the size of his rallies,” New York Times, August 8, 2024 (updated August 10, 2024 (10:24 am ET).
Note: The New York Times article was updated the morning after Nichol’s column was published in The Atlantic.
2)Michael Scherer, Jack Dawsey, and Patrick Svitek, ”Trump holds meandering news conference, where he agrees to debate Harris; The Republican nominee made the announcement during an appearance where he made false or baseless claims as he sought to regain his footing against his Democratic rival, Washington Post, August 8, 2024 (Updated at 4:19 p.m. EDT).
James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities. He is the author of The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021. What We Knew and When We Knew It (forthcoming in August, 2024).
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